When your house is on the market, it needs to be ready at a moment's notice. While most agents do their best to provide you with ample notice of a showing, sometimes there is a buyer who is in town for a very limited time and wants to see your house...now! You never know which buyer will be THE buyer, so you have to have a plan for those short-notice showings.
It's hard to live in a house and have it consistently show-ready at the same time. The mail still arrives everyday, the kids and spouse still act as though they live there (imagine!), Fluffy still leaves her catnip toys all over the place (we'll address other evidence of Fluffy & Friends in another entry), the flotsam and jetsam that is everyday life is ever-present. So what's a seller to do?
One trick is to place attractive covered containers in each room of the house. These can be decorative storage baskets or small hampers with lids. As long as they are neutral and unobtrusive (read: not HUGE) they can be placed discreetly in most any room. When you get that phone call, don't go into panic mode--go into strategic pick-up mode. In other words, quickly go through each room of the house and gather up all the items that have accumulated there and put them in that room's basket.
You can sort through the contents after the showing. And if a family member is looking for something they left "lying around", you have a much better chance of locating it (and then they can put it where it belongs!)
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Stay on top of what's happening in Real Life and Real Estate in
New Hampshire's Beautiful Monadnock Region
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Kim Brown, REALTOR
~CALL~ 603.545.1632 ~TEXT~
Diamond River Realty LLC
~ 603.358-3123 ~
~ 138 School Street, Keene, NH 03431~
Excellent ideas Kim! This can be used for everyday life too - even if I'm not selling my home, we often have surprise visitors and it's be nice to have some attractive "containers" to quickly throw all the mess in (I have a 4 and 6 year old).
As always you are clever and original! Love reading your blogs!
This is one of those brilliant ideas that seems so simple, you want to smack yourself on the forehead and say "Now WHY didn't *I* think of that!" Excellent.
Great idea Kim...I have never thought of doing this, but it makes perfect sense. Thank you!!
Way to go Kim, another great post helping me along... Do you mind if I copy it and put it in my listing folder? The idea is fantastic, but the picture adds so much...makes a really good case for using a t t r a c t i v e containers that add to the staging. Thanks!!
Ronda--thank you! It definitely comes in handy whether you're on the market or not. My kids are 18 and 21 and this method still comes in extremely handy!!
Susan--I guess that means I'm simple-minded...or maybe just a basket-case? LOL
Teresa--Thank you! It really does work, and while buyers may peek in closets and cabinets, they're probably not going to be look inside the baskets!
Bill--by all means! And you're right about using attractive containers...ratty-looking baskets are, well, ratty-looking...we want those houses to look GOOD!!